Penn State, Purdue Women Battle For Big 10 Crown

Illini Picked 10th

INDIANAPOLIS — Once upon a time, back in the early 1970s, Theresa Grentz and Rene Portland starred for the Immaculata dynasty that won three consecutive national basketball championships.

Times have changed. For the last 14 years women's sports have been governed by the NCAA. And now Grentz, in her first year at Illinois, and Portland, in her 16th at Penn State, have become Big 10 coaching adversaries.

Portland has built one of the nation's strongest women's programs. Last season her Nittany Lions shared the regular season title with Purdue and won the conference tournament. This year the preseason poll of the conference's head coaches announced at Thursday's tipoff luncheon in Indianapolis put Penn State in the penthouse suite.

Grentz, in contrast, is inheriting a team that last season shared the basement with Michigan. Her 19 outstanding seasons at Rutgers are history, and she's starting over with a team projected by her peers to finish 10th in the 11-team league.

Grentz has no illusions of sudden grandeur: "Coffee is instant; orange juice is instant; the microwave is instant. Success is not instant. We want to be the best that we can possibly be."

For Portland, being "the best that we can possibly be" at Penn State entails making the preseason poll become reality. "We expect to win our conference title," she admitted.

But Purdue, which tied Penn State for the title the last two seasons, also should be a powerhouse.

"Potentially--and underline the word potentially--this could be the best team we've ever had," said Lin Dunn, in her ninth season as coach of the Boilermakers. "It's the biggest, quickest, fastest team we've had."

Purdue's top performer is senior forward Stacey Lovelace, last season's recipient of the Silver Basketball awarded annually by the Tribune to the conference's Most Valuable Player.

Penn State received eight first place votes and 116 points in the poll, while Purdue had two first place votes and 109 points. Wisconsin was third with one first place vote and 102 points. Then Iowa (84 points), Ohio State (76), Indiana (60), Northwestern (54), Michigan State (46), Minnesota (33), Illinois (23) and Michigan (21).